


Never Sleep / Never Dream

by corruptedkid



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Ghost Drifting, M/M, Nightmares, Post-Canon, uprising is not considered canon in this house
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-25
Updated: 2019-01-25
Packaged: 2019-10-14 21:42:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17516369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/corruptedkid/pseuds/corruptedkid
Summary: Hermann never knew how close it really was.





	Never Sleep / Never Dream

**Author's Note:**

> hey it's me again with more angst yeehaw. i wrote this in an hour
> 
> title from [everything is happening](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2vQhMV7Thk) by mother mother

There is no suitable way to describe the drift but _consuming_.

In the moment, it was everything. All Hermann’s memories and thoughts, each of Newt’s theories and unspoken words, yanked from the depths of their collective subconscious and into a seething mass of blue. 

Afterwards, it still finds ways to eat away at Hermann. It’s not entirely unpleasant - it’s just that sometimes, he hears echoes of thoughts that certainly aren’t his own, or finds himself in the presence of a second set of emotions. The ghost of his connection with Newt lingers in everything he does. Everything _they_ do, he should say. 

It’s not entirely unpleasant.

Except at night.

_Hermann keeps a death grip on his cane as he watches the screen. Gipsy Danger rears back a giant fist and crashes it into Leatherback. The kaiju roars, heaving itself forward, and Hermann flinches_

_as he’s thrown back against the hood of a parked car, mother fucker, that hurt. he clutches his arm and lets loose a few creative expletives before a godawful crunch makes him turn his head, and oh god_

_oh god_

_there it is. his mind goes blank. it sits there at the end of the street, fucking massive, were they all that big? and it almost seems like it’s looking directly at him._

_“trust me,” becket said. “you don’t wanna.”_

_okay yeah maybe he was right about this one._

_the kaiju shifts, startling him back to his senses. the pain in his arm is gone. his head spins with adrenaline. he stumbles back into the tide of humanity and shoves the rest out of the way, out of the way, move move MOVE he’s a doctor he’s a fucking doctor okay and he doesn’t want to die like this, the kaiju are deadly they are annihilators they are death destroyer of worlds and he has always known it but god he never understood before, not even after the drift, fuck he’s so stupid how did he not get it_

_idiot fucking idiot how could chau see it before him? he said it himself, it’s the same tech the jaeger pilots use, it’s a bridge, it goes both ways, as he stared into the abyss it stared back into him with hungry eyes and bared teeth and it gave itself a form to come crawling out, it is nameless faceless horror and all he can do is run_

_his feet are too heavy to take him fast enough and it’s like all his worst nightmares come to life, when something’s chasing him but he can’t fucking move only this time it’s not only in his head_

_he keeps his eyes trained skyward even as he descends. sorry hermann, guess you were right about this one, you know i always said i’d rather die than say that to your face but i didn’t mean it this fucking literally. dad, illia, danke, you were the best family i could’ve asked for, i hope the others manage to fix this before the whole world ends but there’s no way they can do it without me so i’m sorry to you too. bye mako, always knew you were gonna be a hero. bye everybody. auf wiedersehen._

_i’m sorry i didn’t make it back to you hermann just stay the fuck alive after it finds me_

_the crowd pushes up against him from all sides and the heat and pressure are suffocating but not as much as the silence. nobody breathes. the ground shakes, and with every step he knows it’s getting closer, it’s coming for him oh god it knows exactly where he is doesn’t it it found him in the drift and it’s coming_

_and then he’s on the floor and his glasses are gone. holy shit. this is the fucking worst, he’s literally going to die like he’s velma from scooby doo, he at least wants to see the thing that’s killing him for fuck’s sake or actually maybe he doesn’t, by the time he finds his glasses the ceiling is raining dust and his hands are shaking so bad he nearly drops them_

_crash_

_fuck_

_no_

_no no no no nononononno he can’t think he can’t breathe its tongue its fucking tongue is in his face he leans back as if a few inches will save him and it swirls around with some kind of light why the hell does it need bioluminescence in its tongue, that makes no sense, but oh gott das ist das ende_

Hermann gasps and sits bolt upright. His heart races. At any moment the kaiju might catch him and stop it forever. Any second now.

But it’s not real. He’s in bed in the Shatterdome and they closed the breach days ago, the kaiju are gone, Otachi is dead. He clutches his chest, breathing heavily. It wasn’t real.

Except… His heart seizes again. It was real. Not for him, but for -

There’s a knock on the door. 

“Hi,” Newt says, sounding just as out of breath as Hermann. There are tear tracks on his cheeks. “So, if the whole ghost drift thing is still a thing, then I’m gonna guess - “

“It nearly killed you,” Hermann says hoarsely. “It - it really - _Newton_.” He can’t get out anything more before he throws his arms around Newt. 

“Oh,” Newt squeaks. “Hi.”

Hermann squeezes him tightly. He never knew. How could he not know? How did he not see it in the drift? Granted, there were more pressing matters to attend to, but how could he not have _known_? He was standing there with the rest of the Shatterdome crew, watching the battle and yes, worrying for Newt alone in the city, worrying himself sick, but not nearly enough. Gott, if he had known…

The terror of the memory was paralyzing. Knowing how close he came to losing Newt forever feels almost the same.

“I didn’t die, though,” Newt says weakly. “So it’s all okay.”

Clinging to him, Hermann seems to have lost the ability to form words. “If you ever do something so foolish ever again,” he says shakily. “I’ll…” 

It’s not what he means, but the drift will take care of the rest. Hell, knowing each other ten years takes care of the rest. Newt presses his face into Hermann’s neck and whispers, “I know.” 

It’s not what he means, either. But Hermann understands. 

“Can I stay here tonight?” Newt asks. 

Hermann sighs. “Dear man, I’m not sure why you didn’t in the first place.”

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr [@kscientific](kscientific.tumblr.com)!


End file.
